


Of Monsters and Masks

by cappuccinoir (soldiergame)



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 11:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15533367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldiergame/pseuds/cappuccinoir
Summary: Six learns of monsters, and what it means to become one.





	Of Monsters and Masks

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Granblue Fantasy Tarot Project — Crosswinds](https://twitter.com/gbf_tarot)! I was assigned to write for Six, the Eight of Swords.

— 

 

Monster. 

Six is familiar with the term, the word often popping up in the books he used to read when he was a child. Monsters are evil, they said, monsters destroy things, harm innocents. 

Six is a monster. 

It is a fact, nothing more, nothing less — he had come to terms with it long ago at the tender age of ten, on a night filled with blades and betrayal. 

Staring down at the many blades pointed at him, some awfully familiar, he had decided that he wanted to live, no matter what it took. It was with that resolve, that determination, that he surged forward, claws glinting in the moonlight as he dodged, slashed and clawed his way towards the exit. There was no time to think — each movement he made was based on pure instinct. This was nothing like the training he had undergone, there was an underlying sense of urgency, and even the slightest of hesitations could get him killed. 

(He wanted to _live_.)

Six was not naive, nor was he blind. He recognised the moves his assailants used — techniques he had been observing, _practicing_ , on a daily basis ever since he was old enough to hold a sword. Still, he did not waver, blows never halting as he rained a series of deadly slashes upon the assassins — his own clansmen. 

He stopped when he finally struck down the last one (that fight was surprisingly short, he would realise many years later) and on impulse, reached down to remove their mask, only to drop it with a cry. 

Six watched his father take his dying breath, feeling like he had been punched in the gut. 

The mask clattered to the ground. 

 

—

 

He holds no remorse for the clansmen he had killed. After all, what else was a child to do when faced with a mob clamouring for his death? Although the blood they had shed would remain on his hands in his dreams, and if he closes his eyes, he can still hear those accursed words, spat at him with a dying breath. 

“You _monster_.”

Six was a killer, trained since young to become one of the clan’s finest assassins, but above all of that — he was still a child. A child who had killed his entire clan. Part of him argues, rationalises that he had no choice, it was either him or them, but that part is soon buried beneath the disembodied voices that taunt him in his dreams. 

“You killed us!” they scream, “You killed us, you devil spawn!” He can never speak in these dreams — nightmares, only able to watch mutely, unable to defend himself from those accusing eyes. Among them is his father, bloodied hands forcing a mask onto his face despite his fervent struggling. Soulless eyes bore into his. Six thinks of their lives, lives he had extinguished with his own two hands.

_“Monster.”_

 

—

 

_‘They’re right’_ , he realises, he is a monster, just like the ones in the books. He recalls the distant memory, remembers the blood that covered his hands as he stood amongst the bodies of his clansmen. He survived by reaching for the thin thread of opportunity that was dangling above him, but only by stepping on a mountain of corpses that were felled by his hand. 

He keeps his father’s mask, donning it when he enters a small town, but his worries were unfounded. The Karm clan was hidden so well that no villagers would ever find it, and if they did, none of them would make it back to tell the tale. 

Putting on the mask becomes a part of his daily routine, the familiar sensation of the material sliding over his face a comfort to him as he heads into town.

 

—  


(Slowly, the mask begins to fracture, hairline cracks spreading across the surface. They grow in number with each meeting with the mysterious skyfarer who appeared before him during one of his regular trips to the town. He does not know if this is a good thing, but their conversations are nice — they make his steps a little lighter and his heart a little less heavy, so he continues to seek the other out.) 

When he is offered a place among the Eternals, he thinks back to hushed conversations tucked away in a place unknown to the rest of the world. ‘What would it be like,’ he wonders, ‘to step into a world that is bathed in light’. The skyfarer has long since disappeared, his departure as abrupt as their first meeting, but the hope he inspired within the young boy stays — a small, glowing ember that would grow in time.

There is no hesitation when he reaches out, donning the signature mantle the eternals would soon be known by.  
(A silver of light shines through a crack in the mask, unnoticed by its wearer.)

 

—

 

The soon-to-be wielder of the Six Ruin Fist is fundamentally quite different from that skyfarer, he notes.

He sees it in the way they carry themselves, in the carefree smile they sport and the light that shines in their eyes.

Yet, they are also quite similar in the way they fight — to protect the people they hold dear, nothing more, nothing less. 

They are naïve, he thinks as they look at him in the eye and proceed to tell him that they are just as much of a monster as he is. (“ _Murderer!_ ”, the voices shriek, “Killer of your own blood!”) But it is that childish innocence, combined with the deceptively simple desire to protect and their unwavering spirit that makes them so formidable. He does not want to change that for the world. 

 

—

 

“You're too strong! What are you — some kind of monster?”

Sarasa’s words are said in reverent admiration, her intention innocent, but they cut through him deeper than any knife could. His face twists, expression morphing into one of loathing and disgust — directed at no one but himself. He moves to put on his mask, brushing off her concern with the only way he knows.

Yes, he muses, he is a monster, and the power he is seeking would only make him an even greater one. That is fine, he thinks, because for that person, and his captain who feels so much like that person, and the crew they lead, he would not mind being seen as such. 

 

—

 

He stands before them — his captain, Lyria, Vyrn, the rest of the Grandcypher’s crew. He can feel the Six Ruin Fist’s presence, can hear the voice that sings of temptation and power. For a brief moment, he wonders what his life would have been like, had he not met those two people who flooded his dark world with light. 

(The hairline fractures on the mask begin to spread, small chips falling out of it. The light is there, beckoning to him with outstretched hands and a smile he’d recognise anywhere—) 

But he has to settle this with a fight, just like when he had joined the crew and when he left. There is a part of him that wants to show them — both of them, what he can accomplish with this newfound power. 

Six takes a deep breath, and charges.  
  


—

 

When it is all over and he can feel the fatigue seeping into his bones, Six reaches up with shaking hands, and for the first time since he met them, removes his own mask. He does not stop to think about what his face probably looks like (flushed with exertion, twisted in anxiety, embarrassed for a reason he cannot fathom, or the reactions that might stem from it). He has to do it, with his emotions laid bare for all to see, the nervous clench of his jaw and the trembling of his fingers as they tighten around the mask as if grasping desperately at a lifeline. 

Somehow, he manages to choke out the words. 

“T-Thank you!”  
  
(A good portion of the mask falls off, and his world is bathed in light.) 

 

—

 

The mask is still there, memories and ghosts from the past like a phantom weight upon his shoulders. Maybe one day, he’ll burn it, properly face the demons that are chasing him from past to present. But for now, he casts those thoughts aside, grasps the hand that is offered to him and acknowledges the ‘Nice fight!’ that tumbles from the other’s lips. 

(He finally allows himself to step towards the light.)

This, he thinks, is a start.

 

— 


End file.
